Category: Volunteering

We had a wonderful time at Aquavit on Wednesday, hosting the latest edition of The Breakfast Club: London.

If you’re unfamiliar with The Breakfast Club, it’s a free charity chat and breakfast that we host once a quarter, primarily for small and medium charities.

We encourage an open and relaxed environment with discussions taking place around a set theme.

Basically it’s a chance to share experiences, ideas and hopefully come up with a few suggestions, all whilst enjoying a rather fancy and delicious breakfast!

The first edition of The Breakfast Club in 2018 saw ten charity representatives discuss the forthcoming GDPR rollout; looking at what steps different organisations had taken so far, the impact on their ability to communicate with supporters and ways to utilise the new rules. Discussions moved from the potential role of social media as the mass engagement channel, to the benefits of cleaning up databases and using GDPR as an excuse for a clean slate.

The second item on the agenda was an introduction to a new charity engagement platform, whatCharity, presented by Founder, Tiia Sammallahti.

Launching in March, whatCharity is a platform for not-for-profit organisations to communicate with companies and supporters, allowing them to engage in a variety of ways, from donating goods or money, to volunteering and matching up charity needs with CSR initiatives.

Tiia gave an outline of the journey that led her to create whatCharity, as well as a sneak-peak at the platform on attendee’s smart phones, before answering questions.

Every charity in the UK will be listed on the site, so if you’d like to find out more about the platform and what your page will look like, please contact Shona on Shona@WhatCharity.com

If you’d like to join the next edition of The Breakfast Club: London, this Spring, please get in touch!

It’s a new year and rather than look forward to the year ahead, we’re going to look back at giving in 2017. A report from the Co-op, released just before Christmas showed that women are both more likely donate money to and volunteer for charities, whereas, men donate significantly more money on average, per year.

The stats in isolation might seem a little uninteresting, I mean, what’s the difference between a man and a woman with regards to charity? Not a great deal – if you have a sick relative, you may well support a charity that focuses on that condition, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or woman. So why is there such a discrepancy in giving, especially in volunteering? I believe the answer may well lie in what charities can offer and how they offer it.

Based on research from the Co-op

The sector as a whole is getting better at recognising the need to diversify its support models, moving away from a reliance on and channelling everyone towards regular giving. Instead, charities are looking more broadly at different supporter touch-points; slowly learning that engaging with a charity needs to be on a supporter’s level, not the charity’s.

Despite the improvements, the stats show that men still aren’t volunteering anywhere close to the level of women – this can only be down to a lack of opportunity to do something that is both rewarding and interesting, and that activity being marketed in the right way.

So, it’s over to you! There’s a great untapped resource of volunteer hours if only someone would channel it in the right way. Why not think about what help you need, how you advertise it and see if there’s a way you can garner a whole new army of support.